If I never came to this dark corner of the leftist space and checked everyday for updates, I'd never know this stuff occurred. Sucks that it just kind of floats here for a minute before disappearing in the ether
You can get your yt algorithm to show you this kinda stuff. Subscribe to meidas touch, the bulwark, now this is impact and sam sedar. Theres several others but those jump to mind the algo ahould fill in the rest. Hell even aoc has her own channel. These guys are doing what the media should be doing.
The avalanche of incidents seemingly started after President Donald Trump's inauguration in January.
Are you fucking serious, Newsweek? “Seemingly”??! You’re not even going to stretch your neck out to identify the most obvious fucking element in the entire story.
I'd like to hear if he has any intent whatsoever at reigning in this administration, and Musk as well. I believe he'll try to defend them, but I'm prepared. This will sound egotistical which is not my intent, but I'm a fairly intelligent, well-spoken person, and I'll call bullshit where I see it. I don't mind speaking truth to power. I also intend to record the conversation with permission or without. I'm not concerned about admissibility or anything, if he says something worth hearing I just want it on record.
The coward won't hold a town hall. This is as close as I can get at the moment. I'll let you know how it goes.
Here in Finland, Kristillisdemokraatit also has dude who thinks that DOGE is good and we should get something alike to oversee our government efficiency.
The idea itself is not the bad thing. It's the people carrying it out and what they're doing about it that's bad. It just doesn't affect the people who should be affected because they are the ones who are doing it.
In Germany, for example, we should also be downsizing, but instead we are adding more and more pointless authorities etc. that are paid for doing nothing...
So I definitely don't want to defend America's approach. Because it hits the wrong people. But the basic idea itself is not the real problem. It's just a shame that Europe is also turning to the right and would directly abuse such a system to strengthen its own power.
It sounds really bad to me. The implication behind efficiency is that if it's inefficient then it can be stopped. It's a question of control / funding. (Auditing for efficiency is already a thing in societies, DOGE is not that.)
It's like a government within a government. A super institution that sits above the others and decides budgets and policy.
This super institution would need expertise in all things related to self governance. When this super institution audits education how will it know what is efficient unless it has that domain specific knowledge? And then economics, and then engineering, and then social planning, and so on.
I think governmental efficiency stems from a society that values efficiency. Creating a super institution to rule them all is something else.
We have effectively always had an audit and accountability process for our agencies in the US, and I'd be willing to bet the same is true for you in Germany. The problem is that this is absolutely not that--it's just raw oligarchic capture-- and the actual aforementioned historical processes are naturally slow, meticulous, complex, and not readily reported on because they provide little clickbait. If you haven't already, I recommend you actually investigate into the internal review mechanisms that exist in your country.
It’s not that it hits the the wrong person, but that it is being applied blindly without regard to whether it hits the wrong people, on the assumption that there is waste without even looking for it and worst of all on the assumption that agencies implementing policy they have a personal disagreement with are all “waste, fraud and abuse”. And to top it all off, most of these firings are illegal through executive overreach, union busting, lack of any sort of due process or human respect, and implemented through a national security breach violating government privacy and security policies.
Republicans have been told by their leadership that they shouldn't do town halls, but then their opponents talk about how cowardly they are for not standing up for the extremely unpopular policies they support, so some are trying them anyway, always with disastrous results. What else are they supposed to do? They are running for reelection, and their Democratic opponents aren't afraid to face the angry crowds and agree with them, and whip theminto a bigger frenzy.
Now established Democratic congress reps are even doing townhalls in Republican districts, just to face the voters, and show Democratic courage and integrity, and ask questions like "Where is your elected Republican rep? Why cant he face you? Why cant he defend his actions and the actions of his party? Why would you support such a coward? Why is a Democrat willing to face a Republican crowd, when a Republican wont?"
The situation is set for a classic mid-term majority flip, like 2010, which is why the MAGA Nazis wont allow an election to take place. They cant allow the Dems to take either chamber, or they will control the investigative committees. By next summer, violent protests, instigated by RedHats and law enforcement, will give HitlerPig the excuse to declare Martial Law, and suspend elections.
The one thing we have going for us that might make a difference in the fact that the administration of elections is up to the individual states. So there is very little the President can do, on his own. Even the recent Executive Order targeting elections only threatened to stop Federal funding. States can (and will!) fund elections on their own if they have to.
We also have never postponed a Federal election, the date is set by Federal law and it has gone off without a hitch, even through a Civil War and all the wars and pandemics since. So he can declare "Marshall" Law all he wants, but States are free to ignore him and hold elections anyway.
It lets the people talk directly to the person they elected and discuss their feelings and so on. It's also good for the elected officials because it gets them directly in front of their voting base and allows them to campaign in person at all times directly to the people most likely to vote for free.
The reason these are all disastrous is because Republicans don't actually care about listening to what the people want and are just skipping to the campaigning part...
Also worth noting that not holding town halls is a strategy already suggested by the republican parties higher ups and so far it's just led to town halls hosted by democrats instead that are more than willing to tell the most vocal voters why their Republican government has failed them.